Joe Lauzon alone atop record book with 11 fight-night bonuses after UFC on FOX 4 win

When Joe Lauzon is on a UFC card, it’s almost automatic that his name will be called when it’s time to hand out the post-fight bonus awards.

After Saturday, Lauzon (22-7 MMA, 9-4 UFC) now has 11 UFC bonus checks in 13 fights – a staggering 85 percent clip. In his past eight fights, the Boston area native has eight bonus checks. In his past 10, he has nine. In the UFC, it doesn’t get much more automatic than that.

Saturday at UFC on FOX 4, Lauzon pulled off a rare double and entered the record book when he submitted Jamie Varner (20-7-1 MMA, 2-2 UFC) in the third round of a back-and-forth war. He picked up a pair of $50,000 checks for “Submission of the Night” as well as “Fight of the Night.”

Though online databases largely list only nine bonuses for Lauzon, the UFC’s fighter profile page for him lists two more to put him at 11. His UFC debut, a shocking 48-second knockout of Jens Pulver at UFC 63, won “Knockout of the Night.” His second fight in the company, a second-round triangle choke against Brandon Melendez at the TUF 5 Finale, was a “Submission of the Night” winner. Those two fights came before the UFC started announcing the winners at the card’s conclusion.

The two Saturday bonuses were a nice rebound for Lauzon, who was coming off a head-kick knockout loss to Anthony Pettis in February at UFC 144. That loss snapped a streak of six straight fights with a bonus for Lauzon, but he managed to make up for it Saturday in Los Angeles with the double – thanks to some help from Varner, of course, in the slugfest that was televised live on FOX.

Even though the preliminary card featured a pair of submissions, including a pretty slick and relatively rare one when Rani Yahya tapped Josh Grispi with a north-south choke, Lauzon thought he had “Submission of the Night” locked up. “Fight of the Night,” though, was another story.

Lauzon had to watch two fights after his battle with Varner – Lyoto Machida’s knockout of Ryan Bader and the main event between Mauricio “Shogun” Rua and Brandon Vera, which went into the fourth round before Rua finally won by TKO. It was the second straight instant classic for Rua, who at UFC 139 had a five-round “Fight of the Year” with Dan Henderson.

“I thought I had a chance at both,” Lauzon said. “Then I wasn’t sure when that Brandon Vera-Shogun fight was going on. It started out hot and heavy. I thought they might beat me for ‘Fight of the Night.’ But I’m glad I got both. I’m even happier I got the record.”

With 11 bonuses, Lauzon moved past the recently retired Chris Lytle, who called it quits with 10 bonus awards – including a double in his last fight, a third-round submission of Dan Hardy a year ago in Milwaukee. UFC middleweight champion Anderson Silva and lightweight contender Nate Diaz now sit in third with nine bonuses a piece.

He also gets the benefit of calling his shot. Earlier in the week, Lauzon told MMAjunkie.com (www.mmajunkie.com) after a workout that he was going out looking for another bonus award.

“I’m not training for the fighter – I’m training for the bonus,” Lauzon said of the short-notice bout against Varner. “I’m going after that submission, I’m going after that knockout, whatever it’s got to be. But I always have something to win.”

UFC women’s bantamweight champion Ronda Rousey is probably the greatest female fighter on the planet, which is a tremendous feat. So why are we seemingly so obsessed with arguing about whether she could beat up men?